


arrière-ban

by traveller



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-07
Updated: 2005-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:18:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/traveller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>You have been called to fulfill your oaths to the Order.</cite></p>
            </blockquote>





	arrière-ban

Owls light on the waning-moon curve of what once was an immense rose window, a thing made of lead and sand by mortal hands and breath: stained glass, Remus explains, and his wand-assisted recreation does not begin to show it as it was, as it must have been. Imagine it, he says, what it would look like when the sun would hit it, all those colours, all that light, and knowing that the only magic involved in its making is the magic of chemistry, earthbound magic, the magic of men.

The owls snap their beaks and hop impatiently in their disco of red blue pink purple black swirls and spangles, and Remus shakes his head. Sirius wraps his arms round his shins, rests his cheek on his knees. I can't imagine it, he says. It's too big.

I know, I know, Remus says, and he mumbles the words to end the spell, and there is only a bit of firelight in the ruins, and the owls are still waiting.

We should, Sirius says, and sense from Sirius is too much to be borne.

We bloody fucking won't, Remus snaps, we're not _soldiers_ , we're not, we can't be what they want, just because everyone else is, everyone else is _dead_.

The word rings off the stones. A little red owl screeches, and flutters down to the next window. The others follow, seven, no, nine of them, all most certainly carrying the same message, the same as the first scrap of paper that Remus had calmly torn to pieces, the same as the second piece of parchment that he had lit on fire.

 _You have been called to fulfill your oaths to the Order._

Sirius licks his lips, holds out his hand. Come here, he says. Come here, I love you.

We won't die for them, he says. He reaches out blindly, laces his fingers with Sirius'. Not now, not ever.

But we'll fight for them, Sirius says. For us, for the people we love.

Remus stares up at the window, at the absence of it, at the gaping hole in the world where sense used to be, where once stood logic and rules and stained glass. In the distance, there flashes a spark of green light.


End file.
